Tour 24

State 5 parallels the north bank of the James River through woodland and crosses the Chickahominy. The route is exceptionally beautiful, particularly in seasons when heavy foliage frames its ever-changing vistas. It traverses some of the oldest plantations of Anglo-America.

State 5 branches southeast from US 60 (see Tour 8a) in RICHMOND, at the east end of Broad St., 0 m., and for a short distance is a winding cobble-paved road, downhill.

At 3.2 m. is a junction with the Osborne Road.

Right here 5.4 m. to State 156, which traverses the Richmond National Battlefield Park and parallels the line of fortifications that formed the Confederates' outer defenses during the War between the States. FORT HOKE (L), at the junction, has been restored with sandbags and gabions.

Paralleling the Osborne Road is CHAFFIN'S BLUFF (R), which, like Drewry's Bluff (see Tour 1) on the south side of the river, was strongly fortified and formed part of Richmond's defenses.
At 6.4 m. on State 5 is a junction with State 156.

Right here to FORT HARRISON (L), 2.5 m., now a PARK HEADQUARTERS AND MUSEUM (open 9 to 6), where relics and a plaster model of the James River area in relief are on display. Fort Harrison, a strong position in the outer defense line, was captured by the Federals September 29, 1864, when General B.F. Butler attacked in Grant's third major attempt to break through to Richmond while two corps diverted Lee's attention south of the James. The next day a division of Longstreet's Corps failed in an attempt to retake Fort Harrison. The Confederates at this point fell back to a second line, which they held to the end.

At 3.8 m. is FORT HOKE (see above).

At 6.6 m. on State 5 is a junction with the Varina Road.

Right here to the FORT HARRISON NATIONAL CEMETERY, 1.8 m. The soldiers buried here were killed when the fort was taken.

The Varina Road becomes a private road leading to VARINA (pronounced Var-ye-na), 6.2 m., a large brick residence, seat of a plantation by the James. It was on this land in 1612 that John Rolfe introduced the cultivation of tobacco for export to England and began an enterprise that salvaged the struggling colony and formed the basis of early Virginia prosperity. The estate was the home of John Rolfe and Pocahontas for two years following their marriage in 1614 and the birthplace of their son Thomas (see Tour 19). When the counties were formed in 1634, Varina became the seat of Henrico County and so remained until 1752. When in 168o the general assembly directed that each county should have a town or port, one was laid out here for Henrico, County. Here in the Henrico Glebe-House the Reverend James Blair (1653-1743) conceived the plan for a college in Virginia (see Williamsburg). And here, in the Glebe House, the Reverend William Stith (1707-55) wrote his History of the First Discovery and Settlement of Virginia, printed in 1747.

The present brick house was built in 1857 by Albert M. Aiken and was the headquarters of General B,F. Butler while he was digging the Dutch Gap Canal. Called Aiken's Landing, Varina was a place for the exchange of prisoners; the brick bam was used as a detention station.

At 10.7 m. on State 5 is a junction with the Kingsland Road.

Right here to the Deep Bottom Road, 0.7 m., and L. to DEEP BOTTOM, 2.2 m., a landing on the James. Here General Grant disembarked heavy forces several times in attempts to take Richmond. On July 27, 1864, the 2nd Corps and Sheridan's cavalry were landed here to distract attention from Burnside's Mine (see Tour 18). A second unsuccessful attempt, paired with a heavy movement against the Weldon R.R. (see Tour 14), was made by two corps that landed here August 12. In a third attempt on September 29-paired with movements against railroads south of Petersburg-the Federals were successful in capturing Fort Harrison (see above).

Stone gateposts (R) at 11.6 m. mark the entrance to CURLES NECK, a modern dairy farm that was the seat of the leader of Bacon's Rebellion. The Colonial house has been supplanted by the large brick mansion. On a steeplechase course here the owner holds horse shows each spring.

Curles Neck was patented in 1617 by Edward Gurgany. Later it was acquired by Nathaniel Bacon, who, campaigning without authority against the Indians in June 1676, offended Governor Berkeley, was arrested, brought to trial, acquitted and 'forgiven.' When the governor attempted his arrest for a second trial, 500 Virginia farmers, who had resented the governor's failure to give them protection from the aborigines, gathered here and began a civil war.

In 1698 'Curles, formerly Longfield,' and 'Slashes,' 'late in the seizen and inheritance of Nathaniel Bacon . . . and found to escheat to his most sacred Majesty by the attainder of . . . Nathaniel Bacon, Junr., of high treason,' were purchased for 150 pounds by the immigrant, William Randolph, who gave the land to his son Richard.

Brick gateposts (R), 13.7 m., are at the entrance to TURKEY ISLAND, ancestral seat of the Randolph family. The present house, near the James, is relatively modem. Within a walled enclosure are ironstone table tombs, that of the immigrant bearing the Randolph arms. The plantation, so named for an island near by where the first explorers of the river found many wild turkeys, was owned in 1676 by Colonel James Crews, who was hanged for participating with his neighbor, Bacon, in the rebellion. In 1684 the land was sold to William Randolph (1657-1711).

At 13.9 m. is a junction with State 156, the Battlefield Route.

Left here to the BATTLEFIELD OF MALVERN HILL, 1.2 m., scene of the final engagement on July 1, 1862, of the Seven Days' Campaign. Here Lee and McClellan had their armies concentrated for the first time. McClellan's five corps occupied this hill, with flanks by the river; Lee's army stretched in a semicircle to the northward across this road, the only feasible means of approach, The Confederates, retarded more by the fire of artillery than by small arms, were repeatedly repulsed. The assaults, however, were such a threat that General Fitz-John Porter, virtually in command of the field and fearing capture at one period, tore up his diary and campaign book. During the night the Federal army withdrew to their base at Harrison's Landing (see below).

In the GLENDALE NATIONAL CEMETERY (R), 3.1 m., are a vertically mounted cannon and symmetrically circular rows of headstones. Of the 1,192 buried here 958 are unknown.
GLENDALE, 3.9 m., a hamlet where several roads converge, was the central point during the Battle of Glendale, or Frayser's Farm. On June 30, following the Battle of Savage Station, Lee's divisions encountered the Federals at Malvern Hill, at White Oak Swamp, and at this crossroads. Though several Federal divisions maintained their ground throughout the afternoon, fighting stopped as darkness came on, and the Federal forces withdrew to Malvern Hill.

At WHITE OAK SWAMP, 6.5 m., General W.B.Franklin held Jackson. Reaching the north side of the stream about noon and finding the bridge destroyed, Jackson remained here until Franklin withdrew after nightfall.

Right here through woods to another trail, 0.3 m., and R. to the RANDOLPH MONUMENT, 0.5 m. This area-Park Woods.was part of the Turkey Island estate and maintained by the Randolph family as a park. The obelisk, 18 feet high, relates that, 'The Foundation of this Pillar was laid in the calamitous year 17 7 1 when all the Great Rivers of this Country were swept by inundations never before experienced which changed the face of Nature and left traces of their violence that will remain for ages. In the year of 1772 this monument was raised to the memory of the first Richard and Jane Randolph of Curles.'

At 17.5 in. on State 5 is a junction with County 607.

Left here to County 605, 1.3 m., and R. to the SITE OF THE FOREST (R), 1.5 m., where Thomas Jefferson and Martha Wayles Skelton, widow of Bathurst Skelton, were married New Year's Day 1772.

At 19.6 m. on State 5 is a junction with County 608.

Right here 1.5 m. to (R) SHIRLEY (gardens open weekdays, adm. $0.50; house open April Garden Week), one of the largest Tidewater mansions, built between 1720 and 1740; it is on a lawn sloping to the river. Large outbuildings are behind it. The square three-story brick structure is unusually high and has a deep denticulated cornice. The double.hipped roof has no ridge; there is a single fineal at the peak, and plain gabled dormers are packed closely about its four sides. Glazed headers, now almost black, laid in Flemish bond, make a checkered pattern against the dull pink of the stretchers. The entrance and river fronts are half hidden by large two-story porches with plain columns and low pediments, added in 1800.

The asymmetrical interior is notable for its woodwork especially for the number of completely paneled rooms. In the very large hall, occupying more than a quarter of the main floor, is a 'hanging stair,' which seems to have no support as it swings out over the center of the chamber on its way up a square well three stories high. Deep cornices, mantels, overmantels, and broken pediments.each different.over doors that connect the hall and three large reception rooms have carved details. Besides old furniture, the house contains a large collection of portraits. In the great hall hangs an oil of 'King' Carter, elegant in bright red coat and other eighteenth-century finery; and in the parlor are crayons of a later Robert Carter and his wife, and of William Carter, by Saint.Memin.

The estate was settled in 1613 as a hundred called 'West.and.Sherley,' owned by Thomas West, third Lord Delaware, and his brothers, Francis, Nathaniel, and Johnall, except Nathaniel, in turn, governors of Virginia. It was early patented by Colonel Edward Bill. Commemorating in its name Sir Thomas Sherley, the father of Cecilly, Lady Delaware, Shirley passed to Colonel Edward Hill IT (1637-1700), treasurer of the colony, attorney.general, and also councillor and speaker of the house of burgesses. In 1720 the estate was inherited by Elizabeth Hill, who in 1723 married John Carter (1690-1743), eldest son of 'King' Carter (see Tour 16b). Their granddaughter, Ann Hill Carter, was married here to 'Light Horse Harry' Lee in 1793.

The highway crosses Kimage's Creek, 21.5 m., which flows by CAWSEY'S CARE, patented by Nathaniel Causey in 1620. The estate was owned during the time of Bacon's Rebellion by Colonel Thomas Grendon, whose wife Sarah took so prominent a part in the uprising against autocratic rule that she had the honor of being the only woman excepted under the act of 1677 for'indemnitie and free pardon.'

At 23 m. on State 5 is a junction with a dirt road.

Right here to BERKELEY (R), 0.2 m., the birthplace of a signer of the Declaration of Independence-Benjamin Harrison.of a president of the United States-William Henry Harrison.and ancestral home of another president.Benjamin Harrison. Berkeley stands between detached dependencies at the head of low terraced gardens above the James. Its warm red brick walls rise two stories to a deep cornice beneath a massive gabled roof. Two tall chimneys pierce the ridge near the ends above widely spaced dormers.

The chalk white of an unusual quantity of interior hand.tooled woodwork is accentuated by plaster.tinted walls. The spacious, deeply corniced, transverse hall is broken midway by a broad elliptical arch springing from fluted pilasters. A pair of drawing rooms are attractively joined by double.arched openings that flank their common chimney. A glass panel in the wall now reveals 'B. Harrison,' traced undoubtedly by the builder in the temptingly wet base plaster.

The estate was a part of Berkeley Hundred, a grant made to Sir George Yeardley, Richard Berkeley, and others in 1610. The proprietors instructed the settlers of the 'Town and Hundred' that 'the day of our ships arrival . . . shall be yearly and perpetually kept as a day of Thanksgiving! The Margaret landed her passengers at Berkeley, December 4, 1619-a year and 17 days before the Pilgrims arrived to establish their Thanksgiving Day.

Abandoned after the massacre of 1622, the Hundred was later acquired by John Bland, whose son Giles lived here until executed for his part in Bacon's Rebellion. Confiscated by Governor Berkeley, the land was purchased by Benjamin Harrison (1673-1710), attorney.general of the colony, treasurer and speaker of the house of burgesses. Benjamin Harrison, his son, began to build this mansion in 1726. With two daughters, he was killed by lightning during a 'violent Thunder Gust' in July 1745. His son, Benjamin Harrison (1726-91), who installed the handsome interior woodwork, was the signer, a governor of Virginia, and father of William Henry Harrison (1773-1840, who emigrated to the Ohio Territory. William Henry Harrison achieved his distinction in the Northwest Territory, of which he was the first secretary, and which he represented in Congress. The victory of Tippecanoe in 1811 gave him a lasting epithet and 19 years later the campaign slogan that won for the Harrison.Tyler Whig ticket success at the polls. He died, however, one month after his inauguration. His grandson, Benjamin Harrison visited his ancestral home as President of the United States.

Benedict Arnold plundered Berkeley in 1781, and the estate, called Harrison's Landing, served as a base and camping.ground for the Federal army after McClellan's withdrawal from Malvern Hill. Near his transports and under protection of gunboats, McClellan was safe from attack by pursuing Confederate infantry, who stopped short of the river. Though McClellan remained in this position until mid-August, Lee began to withdraw his army on July 13, to oppose General John Pope in northern Virginia.

On the same road WESTOVER, at 2.3 m. (grounds open daily, adm. $1; house open
April Garden Week), once home of the Byrd family and one of the earliest houses built on the grand scale in Virginia, stands at the end of a road that winds between woods and fields. Gates of wrought-iron, made in England long ago, swing between simple posts on which are perched two leaden eagles with half.spread wings. The over-throw is probably the finest piece of old English ironwork in America. The dark red brick mansion looks upon the James across a semi-elliptical lawn framed by great tulip poplar trees. Flanked by a pair of story-and-a-half wings connected by passages, the central rectangular mass rises two stories to a steep hipped roof, with dormers, Windows with shutters and low-arched headings of brick are evenly spaced in two tiers, separated by a string course of brick painted white. The extremely tall chimneys, in pairs at both ends, are important features of the composition. But the exterior chiefly depends for accent on the centered entrances, which are framed by pilasters that support a frieze, cornice, and elaborate pediment. The pediment over the north portal is segmental, while the cornice of the pediment over the garden door is of the broken scroll type with the scrolls framing a pineapple. Within, four large rooms are divided by a transverse hall. The walls are paneled between high dadoes and deep cornices. At the back of the wide hall, an open-string stairway with scroll step-ends ascends behind delicate spiral balusters in sets of three. On the east side, next to the library, where once reposed Colonel Byrd's outstanding collection of almost 4,000 volumes, is the drawing room. Tall pilasters frame the doors and the mantel, which is faced with black marble having a white marble trim.imported from Italy.

Westover Plantation was selected by Captain Francis West in 1619 for his nephew Henry, son and heir of Thomas, third Lord Delaware. At the time of the massacre of 1622 Francis, John, and Nathaniel West had separate plantations here; the Indians killed two men at each. In 1633 Thomas Pawlett represented the plantations in the house of burgesses and in 1637 purchased the Westover tract. The Bland family in 1688 conveyed 1,200 Of these acres to 'Will Bird' for 300 pounds and 10,000 pounds of tobacco. This first William Byrd, son of a London goldsmith, had settled at 'The Falls,' where he founded a business fortune. His son, William Byrd II (1674-1744), built the present mansion and a tradition of abundant living. Construction, begun about 1730, was completed before 1735. Westover suffered early from two fires, the last in 1749. Most of the fine interior trim was probably installed during the second renovation. The 'Black Swan,' as Colonel William Byrd II was called, wrote amusing records of his travels about Virginia and spent a good deal of his life in London, where, as a grandee from the 'new wilderness,' he astonished society with his elegance. He thwarted the romance of his eldest daughter with the Catholic son of the dissolute Earl of Peterborough and the beautiful Evelyn Byrd returned to Westover, where she died at the age of 28, a disconsolate spinster. The other five cygnets, four daughters and a son, offspring of two marriages, married well into the 'closed corporation' of Tidewater society. Byrd's tomb in the garden bears his long, self.composed epitaph, which leaves a reader equally impressed by the record of his remarkable accomplishments and his serene egotism in thus advertising them. The son, William Byrd III, was a prodigious gambler and dissipated the family fortune.

During the Revolution Benedict Arnold landed here more than once and corresponded regularly with the Byrd family, whose Tory sympathies are clearly shown in letters written later by Cornwallis. He said in part to the Lords of the Treasury in 1789, 'She [Mrs. Byrd] had, to my knowledge, reason to expect that she should receive reimbursement at New York for the supplies which were furnished from her plantation to the various corps of British troops which passed by Westover, but she was utterly disappointed [in her claim for 6,600 pounds.' Cornwallis refers also to the Byrds as 'sufferers of a certain description.' But Arthur Lee guessed correctly when he wrote to Colonel Bland in 1781: 'I have reason to think she [Mrs.Byrd] will not be tried at all, because care having been taken to keep the witnesses out of the way.' Sales and good marriage alliances dispersed a large collection of portraits belonging to a family that has been an outstanding contributor to Virginia's tradition of expansive social life.

During the War between the States, the fields and lawns were frequented by Federal troops, who destroyed the east wing and damaged the main building. The house has, however, been restored, fairly well, on the whole, though the symmetry of one dependency has been altered.

At the site of the church are horizontal slabs-one of them covering the dust of the first Benjamin Harrison of Berkeley.and Evelyn's elaborate tomb. Here also is the tombstone of Captain William Perry, who died the '6th day of August Anno Domini 1637.'

At 24.4 m. on State 5 is a junction with County 609.

Left on this road, which at 3.3 m. becomes County 607 and leads to SALEM CHURCH (L), 3.8 m., a small frame building in a woods. Sheridan, returning from Trevilian Station (see Tour 9), picked up a supply train of 800 wagons at White House Landing (see Tour 6A), and set out for the James. At Nance's Shop, north of this church, Hampton attacked the train but was held at bay by General D.McM.Gregg's division of the Federal cavalary while the wagons escaped to the river. Hampton pursued them. The wounded soldiers were brought to this church for care and some of the dead were buried in the churchyard.

At 24.8 m. on State 5 is a junction with a narrow flower-and-shrub-bordered lane.

Right here 0.2 m. to WFSTOVER CHURCH (open 9 to 6), on the bank of Herring Creek in a wide yard dotted with tombstones and shaded by old trees. Built in 1737, the church was before restorations a notable example of Georgian Colonial design-low pitched, with gabled roof, wide overhanging eaves, arched windows at the sides, a main door in the west end, and a door in the south wall. The walls, laid in Flemish bond, are specked with glazed headers to display the quincunx patterns. Modern interior arrangements have caused the south door to be replaced by another arched window, and one of the narrow windows in the east end has been made a door. The modern-oval-topped window in the front gable lights the gallery. Modern furniture has replaced the high-backed pews, but in the gallery old 'stalls' remain. After the Revolution, Westover Church was used as a barn and during the War of the 186o's it was used by Federals as a stable.

The first Westover Church was at Westover. The Byrd family gave this site that the congregation might be remote from the house, because-tradition says-all would remain after services for dinner.

GREENWAY (L), 29.8 m., on a wide lawn among old trees and old outbuildings, was built before 1790. The story-and-a-half frame structure on a brick basement, has dormers and outside chimneys. John Tyler (1747-1813), governor of Virginia from 1808 to 1811, described it as 'a genteel well-furnished dwelling-house, containing six rooms all wainscoted chairboard high.' His son John, who became President of the United States, was born here March 29, 1790.

CHARLES CITY, 30.3 m. (25 pop.), a hamlet with a few houses and stores clustered about the grassy court square, is the seat of Charles City County. Named for a proposed city (see Tour 19), the county is part of one of the oldest political units in America.the four 'incorporations' into which settlements in Virginia were divided in 1619. This 'Incorporation' in 1634 made it one of the eight original counties.

The COURTHOUSE, facing the Confederate Monument and away from the highway, was built in 1730. It is a T.shaped brick building with a gabled roof, low.pitched, and with the bar forming the facade.

The CLERK'S OFFICE, erected in 1902, contains-except for some volumes taken away by Federal soldiers in the 1860's-early records of the county as well as subsequent documents.

At 31.1 m. is a junction with County 615.

Left here to the GLEBE (L), 1.6 m., the Colonial rectory of Westover Parish, approached by an avenue bordered by old trees. A box garden is enclosed by a picket fence. The brick house, built before 1750, is story-and-a-half high with dormers, thick walls, and outside chimneys.

At 31.9 m. on State 5 is a junction with County 619.

Right here to a private road, 2 m., and R. to WEYANOKE, 3 m., on a neck at a bend of the river above a jut called Weyanoke Point. The present hip-roofed f rame residence replaced a colonial house.

Weyanoke-'place where the river goes around land'.was called by the Indians 'Tanks Weyanoke' (Little Weyanoke) to distinguish it from 'Great Weyanoke,' on the opposite side of the river. In May 1607, when Captain Newport and 23 'Gentlemen,' ' Maryners,' and 'Saylours' made a voyage up the river to its falls, they stopped on their return at Weyanoke Point, after visiting, in the vicinity of present Hopewell, 'Queene Opussoquionuske, a fatt lusty manly woman.'In 1617 Opechancanough gave this land to Sir George Yeardley, and in 1610 the gift was confirmed by the London Company. In June 1864 part of Grant's army crossed the river from Weyanoke Point on a pontoon bridge nearly one-half mile long.

The entrance (R) to SHERWOOD FOREST (R) is at 34 m. This was the home of John Tyler, who became President of the United States, and birthplace of his son, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, long president of the College of William and Mary and eminent Virginia historian.

Though the estate has the James as one of its boundaries, the house is a mile or more from the river. The frame structure rambles from a two-and-a-half.story central unit through lower wings and dependencies, all connected by passageways, to a total length of about 300 feet.

In 1842 President Tyler purchased the estate, called Walnut Grove, from Collier Minge and remodeled a Colonial house on it. Lateral additions from time to time finally produced the present structure, completed during ownership of David Gardiner Tyler (1846-1927). Among mementos preserved here is the silver pitcher that was presented to President Tyler by the ladies of Brazoria County, Texas, upon the admission of the 'Lone Star State' in 1845. Though it was burned black in the Richmond fire of 1865, its inscription is still legible.

John Tyler (1790-1862), born at Greenway (see above), a stone's throw from the birthplace of the Whig President whom he succeeded in the White House, was graduated from the College of William and Mary, served as Virginia assemblyman, congressional representative and senator, and as governor of his State. Though he cast his lot with the Whigs in 1833 and with the Democrats in 1844, neither party could claim his wholehearted allegiance or ever gave him its support. In 1840 the Whigs nominated William H. Harrison for the presidency, and Tyler for the vice-presidency, because they thought he could hold the southern Whigs who were being deflected from the party by antislavery agitation. When President Harrison died one month after his inauguration and was succeeded by Tyler, storms, long gathering, broke immediately. Tyler had become the nominal leader of a party whose policies he actually disapproved; Henry Clay remained the real Whig leader. Congressional debates were focused upon the occupation of the Oregon country and the annexation of Texas. Slavery and the extension or limitation of slaveholding territory were the real issues. The Whig President, who was a Calhoun Democrat, favored annexing Texas, a vast slaveholding country, and defied the Whigs who had elected him. Though neither party renominated him in 1844, the election of James K. Polk, Democrat and annexationist, was in a sense a vindication of Tyler's policy and enabled him to sign the annexation bill shortly before the inauguration of his successor.

In 1845 Tyler retired to Sherwood Forest. In 1861 the Virginia legislature commissioned him to confer with President Buchanan concerning Federal occupation of Fort Sumter. On February 4, 1861, he presided over the ineffectual peace conference in Washington, from which he returned to urge secession. After his State had seceded, Tyler was made chairman of the committee that conferred with Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederate States, who had been sent to Richmond to form a treaty of alliance between Virginia and the Confederate Government. He was a member of the provisional Confederate Congress and was elected to the permanent congress January 18, 1862, but died before that body met.

At 34.5 m. is a junction with County 618.

Right here to the gates of LION'S DEN (L), I m. The frame house, a story.and.a.half with dormers, on a wide lawn by the James, was Dr. Lyon Gardiner Tyler's place of retirement after 1919 when he relinquished the presidency of the College of William and Mary, a post he had held for 31 years. Born to John Tyler and Julia Gardiner Tyler in 1853, he was the son of his father's later years. In 1883 he was instrumental in the re-founding of the Richmond Mechanics Night School. As a member of the general assembly he was patron of a bill in 1888 for the re.opening of the College of William and Mary, then a poorly endowed deserted institution. The appropriation of $10,000 he obtained was the first State contribution to that college. Elected president of the college, he cleared the campus of weeds and the building of debris. During his administration the endowment was increased from practically nothing to $154,000 and an expansion in buildings and equipment inaugurated. Against great odds he made the college a State institution in 1906 and against equally great odds coeducational in 1918. He was one of the first men in Virginia to make public his belief in woman suffrage. In 1910 he shocked his conservative friends by presenting Dr. Anna Howard Shaw to a Richmond audience.

Dr. Tyler was also an eminent historian. In 1892 he founded the William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, which he edited until 1919, when he founded and edited Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine. His works include many scholarly histories and biographies.

Right here to GREEN SPRING, 0.2 m. Nothing remains of the home of Sir William Berkeley, governor of the colony (1642-52 and 1660-77), except foundations and the grim little prison where Berkeley wreaked vengeance on the followers of Nathaniel Bacon. But the'very green spring' that gave the estate its name is still flowing.

Here in 1608, under the supervision of Captain John Smith, a house was erected for the manufacture of glass, and when Captain Newport went to England that year he took specimens of the product. The manufacture of glass was continued here at intervals with success during the seventeenth century. In 1619, 3,000 acres were laid out here as the Governor's Land and tilled for the support of the governor's office. After 1624 this public land was leased for terms of 99 years, a system that continued until after the Revolution.

Berkeley's house of which construction was begun before 1650, had a main section nearly 100 feet long and two full stories, with a high roof pierced by two tiers of dormers. During Cromwell's regime, Berkeley retired to Green Spring where he entertained royalist refugees and developed the place after the fashion of an English estate. He set out 1,500 fruit trees, also mulberry trees to feed silk worms, grew orange trees in a hothouse and had extensive rose gardens on the terraced lawn. He presented Charles II with 300 pounds of silk for a robe. Later he experimented with a windmill and dug an ice house. Berkeley also dabbled in glassmaking. This was revealed in 1931 when ruins of a small glass furnace and bits of Colonial-type bottles were unearthed. A brick of the furnace was inscribed 'H.A.L. 1666.' Bacon and his 'rebels' visited Green Spring after the burning of Jamestown in September 1676; and, his lordship being absent, they regaled themselves from the well.filled storehouses.

The solid old house was taken down in 1706 by William Ludwell Lee to make way for a new one designed by Benjamin Latrobe. Recent excavation has yielded a fragment of leaded glass in lozenge lights.